Pre-Doctoral Fellows

Meredith studies international relations with a focus on sub-national conflict and violence. She investigates the relationship between state governments, national militaries and militias in enabling human rights abuses. Her current work explores the impact of security institutions on state-sponsored repression.

Alec Worsnop is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is an affiliate of the Security Studies Program. His research examines civil war, military effectiveness, and civil-military relations and has been supported by organizations including the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Tobin Project. His dissertation investigates the determinants of insurgent military effectiveness and employs a mixed methods approach, which, drawing upon extensive archival materials, includes an in-depth examination of organizations in Iraq (2003-present) and Vietnam (1945-1975). Previously, he worked for a USAID implementing partner, conducting business development for assistance programs in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Visiting Scholars

Elai Rettig is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa. His dissertation examines the military structure and power of the major oil and gas exporting countries in the international system. His regional focus is on the Caspian, Eastern-Mediterranean and West-African regions. In addition, Elai specializes in policy and security issues of Israel’s energy sector, as well as on issues of energy cooperation and conflict potentials in the East-Med. He has received scholarships from Israel's Ministry of Energy and Water and from the University of Haifa, and has graduated with highest honors from the University of Haifa’s Honors Program in Humanities.

Dr. Frank Smith is a Lecturer with the Centre for International Security Studies and the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. His teaching and research examine the relationship between technology and international security. His book, American Biodefense (Cornell University Press 2014), explains why the U.S. military struggled to defend itself and the country against biological warfare and bioterrorism. His current research compares security cooperation on infectious diseases with cyber defense against malware; he is also analyzing the impact of quantum computing on international relations. Frank has a Ph.D. in political science and a B.S. in biological chemistry, both from the University of Chicago.

Ph.D. Candidates-in-Residence

Ryan is a Ph.D. student in public policy at George Washington University and a reserve officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He received his master's degree in Security Policy Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs and his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Utah. Ryan’s research interests revolve around issues in international security, U.S. defense policy, and research methodology. His dissertation will examine the influence of logistics on military effectiveness, and try to identify the contribution of logistics relative to other important factors. Before graduate school, Ryan spent more than five years on active duty as a supply officer in the Marine Corps and deployed overseas twice.

Daniel Jacobs

Daniel Jacobs is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University and a research assistant at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies in the Elliott School of International Affairs. His current research interests include the strategic benefits of material and ideational vulnerability, autocratic accountability, and theories of grand strategic success. Daniel holds a M.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A.(Hons) in Political Science from McGill University. When not studying international relations, Daniel is an aspiring barbecue pitmaster and canoe builder/woodworker.

Michael Joseph

Michael Joseph is a Ph.D. student in political science at George Washington University. His research uses formal insights to explore how states determine the extent of each other’s motives and its consequences for war, trade and peace. He is passionate about the role of bad actors in international politics and is interested in how Western powers can single these states out and manage their bad behavior. His research draws from six years’ experience working in Iraq, Jordan and the United States in various analytical roles. In his spare time he makes ice cream and plays risk.

Bryce Loidolt is a doctoral student in political science at George Washington University and an adjunct researcher at the RAND Corporation. He has also served as adjunct faculty at National Defense University at Fort Bragg, NC. His research focuses on terrorism and counterterrorism, with a current interest in the relationship between security force assistance and recipient combat effectiveness. At RAND, he has recently assisted in coordinating and synthesizing findings from advanced quantitative models and qualitative analytic tools to inform U.S. strategy against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Bryce also worked as an adviser to Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan, and conducted field research in Egypt and Yemen. Through Arabic and English language research, Bryce’s work has appeared as RAND Corporation monographs and in scholarly journals such as Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Terrorism and Political Violence. A Southern California native, Bryce received his B.A. in Middle East Studies from Middlebury College, and his M.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jacquelyn Schneider is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at George Washington University. Her research focuses on the intersection of national security, technology, and political psychology and covers a diverse range of topics from intelligence to unmanned technologies to cyber policy. Her work appears in Journal of Conflict Resolution, Strategic Studies Quarterly, the International Relations and Security Network, and War on the Rocks. She has won awards for Best Graduate Student Paper at both the International Studies Association Annual Meeting (Foreign Policy Section and International Security Studies Section) and the Southwestern Social Sciences Association Annual Meeting and is a two-time award winner of the AFCEA National Intelligence Writing Contest. Before beginning her academic career, Jacquelyn spent six years as an Air Force officer in South Korea and Japan. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University and a M.A. in Political Science from Arizona State University.

Pre-Doctoral Fellows

Daniel Krcmaric is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Duke University. His dissertation examines how the justice cascade, the recent trend toward holding leaders accountable for mass atrocities, influences civil conflict and political violence. He has held a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and a Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, and his work has been published in Security Studies. Prior to graduate school, Daniel studied political science and economics at the University of Notre Dame.

Joseph Torigian is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in qualitative methods, civil-military relations, and Chinese and Russian politics and foreign policy. Drawing on extensive primary source research, his dissertation, "Cleaning Up the Revolution," investigates the nature of elite-level political authority in China and the Soviet Union in the Deng and Khrushchev eras, paying special attention to the role of the military in each case. Previously, Joseph worked as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, studied at Fudan University in Shanghai on a Fulbright Scholarship, and conducted research in the Soviet archives on an IREX scholarship.

Sara Bjerg Moller is doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. Prior to undertaking her graduate studies, she worked as a Research Associate for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also held research positions at the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Her research has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, National Interest, Middle East Times, and World Politics Review. Her monograph "Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Tenth Anniversary of September 11, 2001" won first place in the 2011 Richard A. Clarke National Scholarly Monograph Contest. Her dissertation explores the institutional design and effectiveness of military alliances and coalitions.

Visiting Scholars

Olivier Henripin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University specializing in international relations and formal and quantitative methods. His dissertation, titled “Intractable Territorial Conflicts and the Strategic Social Construction of Indivisible National Homelands,” seeks to explain the origins of perceptions of indivisibility in territorial disputes and the conditions under which indivisibility fosters dispute intractability or, conversely, facilitates peaceful dispute resolution. His broader research interests include Chinese foreign policy, Sino-U.S. and Sino-Taiwanese relations, the bargaining approach to war, and domestic determinants of foreign policy. His research has been supported by fellowships from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds québécois de recherche. He holds a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Montreal and an M.A. in Political Science from McGill University. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Diplomacy and Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

Tyson Belanger studies how states, especially democracies, use promise strategies to improve interstate war outcomes. Before Harvard, Tyson served as a Marine for six years and deployed overseas five times, three times to Iraq. Tyson earned his B.A. from Yale, where he served as student body president. Tyson has visited 50 U.S. states, 2 U.S. territories, and 81 countries.

Andy LevinMy dissertation examines the impact of United Nations peacekeepers on local security during civil war. Although numerous studies find positive effects of UN operations at the country level, frequent reports of violence near UN bases raise questions about peacekeepers’ ability to credibly deter aggression. Using an original dataset of peacekeeping deployment in eight African civil wars, as well as case studies of UN operations in Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo, I find no relationship between the spatial deployment of peacekeepers and local patterns of violence. Given peacekeepers’ limited dissuasive capacity, I contend that peacekeeping successes are primarily a result of the UN’s macro-level peacebuilding efforts.

Ph.D. Candidates in Residence

Inwook Kim is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the George Washington University. He is broadly interested in the relationship between oil and international security, and his dissertation focuses whether and how oil reinforces or undermines national security of oil-rich states. In addition, he also works on historical and contemporary inter-Korean relationship. Prior to joining GWU, Inwook has worked as a lecturer at Korea Military Academy for three years (1st Lt). He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University, and received a MA from London School of Economics. Inwook is a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship.

Daniel Jacobs is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University and a research assistant at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies in the Elliott School of International Affairs. His current research interests include the strategic benefits of material and ideational vulnerability, autocratic accountability, and theories of grand strategic success. Daniel holds a M.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A.(Hons) in Political Science from McGill University. When not studying international relations, Daniel is an aspiring barbecue pitmaster and canoe builder/woodworker.

Michael Joseph is a Ph.D. student (Political Science) at George Washington University. His research uses formal insights to explore how states determine the extent of each other’s motives and its consequences for war, trade and peace. He is passionate about the role of bad actors in international politics and is interested in how Western powers can single these states out and manage their bad behavior. His research draws from six years’ experience working in Iraq, Jordan and the United States in various analytical roles. In his spare time he makes ice cream and plays risk.

Pre-Doctoral Fellows

Andrew Bell is a Ph.D. candidate in Security, Peace and Conflict Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. His dissertation research focuses on civilian targeting in war, international humanitarian law, military culture, ethics in conflict, and counterinsurgency. He has served as an active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, and Germany, and he is currently a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Andrew holds a J.D. and M.A. (specializing in international law) from the University of Virginia, a Master of Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School, and an A.B. in Public Policy Studies and History from Duke University.

Olivier Henripin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University specializing in international relations and formal and quantitative methods. His dissertation, titled “Intractable Territorial Conflicts and the Strategic Social Construction of Indivisible National Homelands,” seeks to explain the origins of perceptions of indivisibility in territorial disputes and the conditions under which indivisibility fosters dispute intractability or, conversely, facilitates peaceful dispute resolution. His broader research interests include Chinese foreign policy, Sino-U.S. and Sino-Taiwanese relations, the bargaining approach to war, and domestic determinants of foreign policy. His research has been supported by fellowships from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds québécois de recherche. He holds a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Montreal and an M.A. in Political Science from McGill University. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Diplomacy and Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

Sameer Lalwani is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is an affiliate of the Security Studies Program and studies U.S. grand strategy, military intervention, civil-conflict, civil-military relations, and national security decision making. His dissertation seeks to explain why states choose particular strategies within civil conflict to combat rebellion, primarily in South Asia. Sameer has conducted field research in Pakistan and India and archival research in the UK, for which he has received support from the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Tobin Project and the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Previously, he spent three years as a policy analyst at the New America Foundation and he holds a bachelor's degree in political science from University of California, Berkeley.

is doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. Prior to undertaking her graduate studies, she worked as a Research Associate for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also held research positions at the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Her research has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, National Interest, Middle East Times, and World Politics Review. Her monograph "Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Tenth Anniversary of September 11, 2001" won first place in the 2011 Richard A. Clarke National Scholarly Monograph Contest. Her dissertation explores the institutional design and effectiveness of military alliances and coalitions.

Visiting Scholars

Se Young Jang, Graduate Institute of International and Development StudiesCurriculum Vitae

Se Young Jang is a Ph.D. candidate in international history at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva. Her Ph.D. dissertation focuses on exploring how the US government persuaded and/or pressured its close East Asian allies, South Korea and Taiwan, not to develop their own nuclear weapons in the 1970s. Her research is based on extensive archival research in US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, and South Korea, and she hopes that her research will contribute to providing valuable case studies to enrich historical research on US non-proliferation policy. Se Young received her B.A. in political science and her M.A. in international relations from Seoul National University. Prior to joining the Ph.D. program at the IHEID, she was a South Korean diplomat specializing in disarmament and non-proliferation issues and participated in the 2009 UN Program of Fellowship on Disarmament. Se Young is also a recipient of the 2013-2014 Albert Gallatin Fellowship.

Jakub Kosciolek is a Cultural Studies graduate and Ph.D. student at the Institute for Regional Studies at Jagiellonian University (Krakow). He has participated in many scientific conferences and authored numerous articles on subjects ranging from the problems of the linguistic situation in Ukraine, the fear of crime generated by the media, issues of exploitation of the Holocaust in popular culture, to the analysis of the canonical works of literature and drama of the twentieth century. His latest works include The Conflict in Darfur (2010), and editing Problemy wspolczesnej Afryki. Szanse i wyzwania na przyszlosc [The problems of contemporary Africa. Opportunities and challenges for the future] (2013).

Navid Hassibi, University of Antwerp

Navid Hassibi is a doctoral candidate in political science with the Research Group in International Politics at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. His dissertation focuses on the U.S. nuclear weapons policy under the Obama administration and examines whether decades old policies are changing and if so, to what degree and why. Navid is additionally an international affairs analyst in the Canadian civil service within a national security portfolio agency. He also frequently provides analysis and insight on affairs in the Middle East, particularly on Iran. His work has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The National Interest, and with PBS Frontline. Navid holds a B.A. (Hons.) in Political Science from the University of Toronto and an MA in International Politics from the University of Manchester (UK).

Ph.D. Candidates-in-Residence

Julia Macdonald is a fifth year doctoral candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University and a research and teaching fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies in the Elliott School of International Affairs. Julia's current research focuses on signaling and threat credibility during international crises. Her dissertation investigates the importance of varying domestic political environments in shaping leaders' assessments of threat. Additional research interests include gender and peacekeeping, military strategy and effectiveness, and U.S. foreign policy decision making. Julia completed her undergraduate training in History and Philosophy in New Zealand and holds an M.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Chicago. She worked for the New Zealand Ministry of Defense as a Policy Analyst for two years prior to joining the doctoral program at GWU, and she has received support for her research from the New Zealand Government.

Chana Solomon-Schwartz is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the George Washington University. Her dissertation project examines whether the presence of women in foreign policy decision-making bodies impacts the discourse, decision-making processes, and/or policy outcomes of those bodies with regards to the use of military force and humanitarian intervention. More broadly, her research interests include U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, the politics of organizations, and IR theory. Before graduate school, Chana was a Research Assistant at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and has studied in Israel, Jordan, and Morocco. Outside of the field of political science, Chana enjoys biking and is working on developing an episodic play.

is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the George Washington University. He is broadly interested in the relationship between oil and international security, and his dissertation focuses whether and how oil reinforces or undermines national security of oil-rich states. In addition, he also works on historical and contemporary inter-Korean relationship. Prior to joining GWU, Inwook has worked as a lecturer at Korea Military Academy for three years (1st Lt). He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University, and received a MA from London School of Economics. Inwook is a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship.

Pre-Doctoral Fellows

Austin Carson is a doctoral candidate focusing on international relations in the Political Science department at Ohio State University. His research generally focuses on the intersection between political accountability and national security. His dissertation examines the uses, consequences, and significance of secrecy practices in international security, specifically the strategic logic of covert military interventions. Other research projects evaluate the relationship between secrecy-generated opacity and norm-related state behavior; the rationale for building information restrictions into international organizations; and the impact of blame dynamics on leader decisions regarding war. He holds an MA in political science from Ohio State University (with distinction) and graduated from Michigan State University's James Madison College with a BA in international relations (with honors). He previously worked for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. as a research analyst in weapons of mass destruction non-proliferation from 2002-2005.

Andrew Bell is a Ph.D. candidate in Security, Peace and Conflict Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. His dissertation research focuses on civilian targeting in war, international humanitarian law, military culture, ethics in conflict, and counterinsurgency. He has served as an active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, and Germany, and he is currently a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Andrew holds a J.D. and M.A. (specializing in international law) from the University of Virginia, a Master of Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School, and an A.B. in Public Policy Studies and History from Duke University.

Sameer Lalwani is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is an affiliate of the Security Studies Program and studies U.S. grand strategy, military intervention, civil-conflict, civil-military relations, and national security decision making. His dissertation seeks to explain why states choose particular strategies within civil conflict to combat rebellion, primarily in South Asia. Sameer has conducted field research in Pakistan and India and archival research in the UK, for which he has received support from the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Tobin Project and the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Previously, he spent three years as a policy analyst at the New America Foundation and he holds a bachelor's degree in political science from University of California, Berkeley.

J. Thomas Moriarty is a doctoral candidate in the Politics Department at the University of Virginia. He is also a former intelligence officer for the US military. Tom has been deployed to numerous locations, including countries in the Middle East and Asia, where he worked as a strategic affairs analyst and senior adviser on geopolitical affairs. Over the years, he has served as a consultant to the Department of Defense on counterterrorism and defense modernization strategies. Additionally, he has been a guest lecturer on counterinsurgency at the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS) and a defense fellow at the Korean Military Academy. He is also a frequent commentator on US defense politics for several newspapers and defense-related websites. His teaching and research focuses broadly on the field of strategic studies, including nuclear weapons proliferation, Middle East politics, asymmetrical warfare, and military strategy. His dissertation, "Losing is Half the Battle: Cost-Tolerant States and the Ending of Major Wars," focuses on how the international security environment impacts a state's decision to end or prolong costly wars. His works can be found in such journals as Small Wars and Insurgencies, Strategic Studies Quarterly, and World Affairs Journal.

Lindsey O'Rourke is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. She also holds a Master of Arts from the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago and two Bachelors of Arts from The Ohio State University with majors in Political Science, International Relations, Philosophy and German Literature & Culture. During her graduate years at Chicago, she also received the Provost and Harper Fellowships and worked as the graduate student coordinator for the Program on International Security Policy (PISP). Her research interests include regime change, International Relations theory, U.S. foreign policy, military strategy and the Cold War. Her dissertation is titled: "Why do States Conduct Covert Regime Change?" It is the first study of its kind to systematically assemble an original dataset of all American regime change operations during the Cold War.

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson is a doctoral candidate in the MIT Political Science Department and affiliate of the MIT Security Studies Program. His dissertation, entitled "Life on the Downward Slope: Explaining State Decisions to Support or Exploit Declining Great Powers," examines the rising state behavior towards declining great powers. This work has been supported by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Scowcroft Institute, and the Tobin Project, among others. Additional research interests include conventional military operations, energy security, grand strategy, and the political uses and abuses of history. A native of New Jersey, Josh is a 2006 graduate of Brandeis University and previously consulted with the RAND Corporation. Outside the field of political science, he enjoys esoteric books of alternate history, the New England Patriots, and writing brief biographical paragraphs.

Visiting Scholars

Payam Ghalehdar is a Ph.D. candidate focusing on international relations in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His dissertation project inquires into the role and significance of forcible regime change in U.S. foreign policy by looking at a number of military interventions that span more than a hundred years of American foreign policy. His wider research interests are US foreign policy, US-Iran relations, international assassination and international relations theory more broadly. Payam holds a B.A. and M.A. in political science from the University of Mannheim (Germany) and has been a visiting student at Uppsala University (Sweden) and Johns Hopkins University. He has previously worked as a research associate at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research and as an intern at the German Bundestag and European Parliament.

Kathryn McNabb Cochran (B.A. Duke University 2004, M.A. Duke University 2008, Ph.D. Duke University 2011) is a post-doctoral scholar who focuses her research on the reputational consequences of interstate war, the causes and consequences of civilian victimization, and the domestic politics of American foreign policy. She has presented her research at numerous national conferences and has co-authored a paper on the military effectiveness of strategies that intentionally target civilians that was published in 2010. She has received a number of academic awards including the 2008 MPSA Best Paper in International Relations and the 2012 Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the field of International Security and Arms Control. She has taught courses on international relations, international security, and American Foreign Policy. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a legislative assistant for Congressman Buyer (IN-04) where she handled committee work on telecommunications and energy policy.

Jane Vaynman is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University. Jane's research focuses on security cooperation between adversarial states, the design of arms control agreements, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Previously, Jane worked at the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance at the US Department of State, the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and conducted research in the Russian Federation on a Fulbright. She was a co-editor and contributor for the March 2011 issue of The Nonproliferation Review whichassessed international responses to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. Jane received her BA in International Relations from Stanford University with honors in security studies from the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Ph.D. Candidates-in-Residence

Julia MacDonald is a fourth year doctoral student in Political Science at the George Washington University and a research and teaching fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies. Julia's current research focuses on signaling and threat credibility during international crises. Her dissertation will examine the means by which states communicate during crises and how different signaling mechanisms impact threat effectiveness. Additional research interests include gender and peacekeeping, civil-military relations, and the role of experts in foreign policy decision making. She is a recent alumna of Columbia University's Summer Workshop on the Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS) and the Bridging the Gap Project's New Era Conference on Foreign Policy. Julia completed her undergraduate training in History and Philosophy in New Zealand and holds an MA (Honors) in International Relations from the University of Chicago. She worked for the New Zealand Ministry of Defense as a Policy Analyst and International Defense Relations Adviser for several years prior to joining the doctoral program at GWU.

Chana Solomon-Schwartz is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University and a research assistant for the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies. Her research looks at the role of state reputation in foreign policy decision-making, as well as at political learning in human rights treaties. Before graduate school, Chana was a Research Assistant at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and has studied in Israel, Jordan, and Morocco.

Tristan Volpe, The George Washington University

Tristan Volpe is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science, with an emphasis in International Relations theory, security studies, and quantitative methodology. His dissertation elucidates the security implications of the nuclear fuel cycle choices states make short of nuclear weapons acquisition. Why do states use enrichment and reprocessing technology to practice deterrence and compellence? How do different nuclear fuel cycle choices impact regional and international security outcomes? The dissertation constructs a theory to explain the causes and consequences of nuclear fuel cycle postures. Tristan received support for his ongoing research from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Pre-Doctoral Fellows

Austin Carson is a doctoral candidate focusing on international relations in the Political Science department at Ohio State University. His research focuses on political accountability and national security. His dissertation examines the historical role of secrecy in the conduct of foreign policy and its link to state efforts to manage their perceived identity and role in the eyes of audiences at home and abroad in security contexts. He also researches blame dynamics before and during international conflict, exploring the degree to which leader efforts to deflect blame for negative outcomes succeeds and the extent to which considerations of political accountability influence war-related decisions. He holds an MA in political science from Ohio State University (with distinction) and graduated from Michigan State University's James Madison College with a BA in international relations (with honors). He previously worked for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. as a research analyst in weapons of mass destruction non-proliferation from 2002-2005.

Marco Fey is a research associate at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and a doctoral candidate at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He receives a dissertation grant from the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders". He was a visiting researcher at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) in March 2010.

In his dissertation Marco examines the effects of 9/11 on the normative order of US domestic and foreign security policy. His further research interests are arms control, constructivist and democratic peace theory, military sociology, and US and British foreign and security policy. His publications include "Multinational Enterprises as 'Social Actors' - Constructivist Explanations for CSR" (Global Society, 2011), "The Ideal British Officer - Professional, Intellectual and Educated" (The Wish Stream - Journal of the RMAS, 2011), "Auf dem Weg zu Global Zero? Die neue amerikanische Nuklearpolitik zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit" (HSFK-Report, 2010), and "Democratic Peace" (The Encyclopedia of Political Science, CQ Press, 2010).

Oded Haklai is an associate professor of political studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he teaches courses on Middle East politics, Israel, nationalism and ethnic conflict, and comparative politics and international relations. His research focuses on various aspects of Jewish Israeli-Palestinian relations, ethnic conflict, and other peace, conflict, and security studies issues.

Haklai is the author of Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). He is currently completing on three co-edited volumes: Democratization and Ethnic Minorities (with Jacques Bertrand (Toronto)), Democracy, Religion, and Conflict: The Dilemmas of Israel's Peacemaking (With Elman (Syracuse) and Spruyt (Northwestern)); and Settlers in Contested Lands (with Neophytos Loizides (Queen's, Belfast)). He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, including Comparative Politics, International Studies Review, Israel Studies, Nations and Nationalism, Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, and Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

Haklai earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto (2004). He spent the 2010-11 academic year as a research fellow at the Truman Institute for Peace, Hebrew University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv University.

Marc Jaeger is a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for Comparative and International Studies in Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests include theories of international relations, security studies, and international political economy with specific focus on international sanctions, sociological approaches to international relations, broadening of security agenda, risk rationalities in international relations, and reflexive security. Marc has also written on the securitization of risk and global issues. He has served as an assistant lecturer at the Chair of Security Studies since 2009.

Julia Macdonald, The George Washington University

Julia Macdonald is a third year doctoral student in Political Science at the George Washington University and a research assistant in the Elliott School of International Affairs. She completed her undergraduate training in New Zealand and holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago. Julia worked for the New Zealand Ministry of Defense for two years prior to joining the doctoral program at GW. Julia's current research interests include civil-military relations, nuclear proliferation, and the role of experts in US foreign policy decision making.

Melissa McAdam, University of California, Berkeley

Melissa McAdam is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation, "Beat Cops and Battlegrounds: American Policing in Iraq and Afghanistan", uses interviews and fieldwork to examine how U.S. Marines fostered security in Ramadi, Iraq and Garmsir, Afghanistan. Its examination of the relationships among counterinsurgents, non-state security providers, and fledgling domestic security forces shows how to build and transition to effective and sustainable domestic police and military forces. Her research is supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the University of California, Berkeley. Melissa's other research interests include: national security policy, the impact of new technology on war, and operations other than war.

She has worked in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and in Afghanistan, supporting Army operations. Most recently, through her work with the Combating Terrorism Center, she has been engaged with a Joint Staff project examining the unintended consequences of US Government actions. Melissa holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Classics and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Jerry Nockles is a research scholar and doctoral candidate with the Australian National University, Canberra. This fall, he is visiting scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

Jerry has recently completed service with the Royal Australian Navy after a career spanning over 23 years. During this engagement, Jerry saw active service in the liberation of Kuwait whilst serving in the Destroyer, HMAS BRISBANE, in 1991.

Jerry's current research builds on his experience of that conflict, and is titled The Fifteen Years' Crisis, Iraq 1988-2003: A Study of Foreign Policy Elite Norms and their impact on Decision-Making. It sets out to achieve a revisionist analysis of events leading to conflict between Iraq and the United States in 1991 and 2003. The aim of his work is to provide a fresh interpretation of the US-Iraq relationship by analyzing the evolving attitudes of key US foreign policy decision-makers towards Iraq.

Jerry has completed postgraduate studies through the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy and holds a Masters Degree in Middle East and Central Asian Studies from the Australian National University.

Andras Szalaiis a Ph.D. candidate at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His field of specialization is U.S. foreign policy and nuclear nonproliferation, specifically focusing on U.S. nuclear policy. He attained a master of arts in political science from the Central European Institute and another master of arts degree in international affairs from Corvinus University of Budapest. He has presented several conference papers on international security strategy and policy change, most recently on the Westphalianization of Cyberspace.

Shingo Yoshida is a postdoc research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). His field of specialization is International Relations, and the recent interest of his research includes historical development of the U.S.-Japan alliance and theories of alliances. His doctoral dissertation entitled "Institutionalization of the U.S.-Japan Alliance: 1963-1978" (written in Japanese) explored why the U.S.-Japan alliance was institutionalized during the 1960s and the 1970s, and received The 9th Asia Pacific Research Prize (Iue Prize) in 2010. His specific research project at the ISCS focuses on causal mechanism of the institutionalization of the U.S.-Japan alliance and origins of the U.S.-Japan cooperation on missile defense in the 1960s. He attained his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in political science from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. Prior to his current position, he was a part-time researcher at the National Institute for Defense Studies, Ministry of Defense and a graduate research fellow of the JSPS.

Zhang Yimeng is the editor of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a research institution established in 1980 in Beijing, China. Zhang is also pursuing her Ph.D. at CICIR in international relations theory and has published academic work and government reports on the Western democratic system and Chinese Communist Party, among others. She received her master of arts in international relations from the University of International Relations (UIR) in Beijing, completing a dissertation entitled "Blaire's Policy Toward Europe."

Visiting Scholars

Andrea Baumann, Oxford University

Andrea Barbara Baumann is a doctoral candidate in international relations at Oxford University. Her dissertation examines the impact of disparate organizational cultures on civilian-military coordination through a comparative study of British and American attempts to coordinate defense, diplomacy and development in the pursuit of stability in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her essay Clash of organisational cultures? The challenge of integrating civilian and military efforts in stabilisation operations won first prize in the 2008Trench Gascoigne Essay Competition of the Royal United Services Institute, London (RUSI Journal 153/6 (2008), 70-73). She holds an MPhil (Distinction) in International Relations from Oxford University and a Licence és relations internationales (MA) from the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva, Switzerland. She has previously worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations in Geneva. She is fluent in German, French and English and is trying hard to keep her rusty Spanish and rudimentary Russian skills alive.

Brent Durbin, Smith CollegeDr. Brent Durbin is assistant professor at Smith College, where he teaches courses in U.S. foreign policy, strategic intelligence, military conflict and culture, and international relations. His research interests span these topics, with a particular focus on the organizational dynamics of national security bureaucracies. He is currently working on a book manuscript exploring the politics of U.S. intelligence reform.

Durbin earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and also holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.P.P. from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has held research fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), the University of California's Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), and Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge.

Prior to joining the Smith faculty, Durbin taught in the public policy program at Stanford University. He also has served as press secretary for U.S. Senator Patty Murray, and as an adviser and senior staff member on several campaigns for U.S. Congress.

Dr. Lantis' research focuses on international relations, with a specialization in foreign policy analysis and international conflict and security. He teaches courses in United States Foreign Policy and International Relations at the College of Wooster in Ohio. During his visit to the Institute for Security & Conflict Studies he conducted research for a book on the politics of nuclear nonproliferation, with special attention to norm deconstruction.

Dr. Dong Sun Lee, Korea UniversityDong Sun Lee is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Korea University. His research interests include East Asian security and international relations theory. Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and conducted research for the East-West Center, before assuming his current position. He is author of Power Shifts, Strategy, and War: Declining States and International Conflict (Routledge, 2008) and of articles in scholarly journals, including Asian Security, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Journal of East Asian Studies, and The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis. He also contributed to edited volumes such as The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Stanford University Press, 2008) and The International Encyclopedia of Peace (Oxford University Press, 2010). His current research focuses on North Korea, US-China relations, and alliances of the Asia-Pacific region.

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a doctoral candidate in the Politics department at Princeton University. This year she is also a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School, George Washington University. Her research focuses on military operations and strategy, war termination, and Northeast Asia. She is a coeditor as well as coauthor of two chapters in Assessing the Threat: The Chinese Military and Taiwan's Security. She has worked on US China policy issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND Corporation, US Pacific Command at Pearl Harbor, and Project 2049 Institute. Highly proficient in Mandarin Chinese, she worked at a Chinese valve-manufacturing firm in Beijing, makes frequent appearances on a Chinese-language debate show, and is a charter member of DoD's National Language Service Corps. Mastro recently joined the Air Force Officer Reserves. A distinguished graduate, wing commander, and recipient of the USAA Leadership award, Mastro completed Officer Training School (OTS) and received her commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in May 2010. Though originally from Chicago, she holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies with honors in International Security from Stanford University.

Jin Wang, China Institutes of Contemporary International RelationsJin Wang is an assistant research professor and PhD candidate at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), one of the most important government think tanks in Beijing. Her research focuses on US foreign policy. She has published several articles on the issues of terrorism as well as the Iran nuclear situation. Her research project at ISCS focuses on Chinese and U.S. clean energy programs. Before joining CICIR, Jin held an intern teaching position at the China Institute of Defense Science and Technology as well as at Beijing TV Station and Xinhua News Agency. She holds a B.A. in History from Shandong University as well as an M.A. in International Relations from the School of International Studies at Peking University.

News from ISCS Fellows and Visitors

Ph.D. Candidate-in-Residence Julia MacDonald visited Japan as part of the German Marshall Fund and Sasakawa Peace Foundation's Young Strategists Forum. The Forum brings together emerging leaders from the United States, India, Japan, Indonesia, and Europe to discuss Asia-Pacific security issues.

Pre-Doctoral Fellow Andrew Bell published an article titled, "Using Force Against the 'Weapons Of The Weak': Examining a Chemical-Biological Weapons Usage Criterion For Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention Under The Responsibility to Protect," in the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law.